The Woodbury County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a pipe bomb that was discovered at the Anthon water tower Tuesday afternoon. Major Greg Stallman of the Sheriff’s Department, says a city employee found the device just before four o’clock and brought it to Anthon City Hall.

He says they determined it could be an explosive device and the ATF and State Fire Marshal were called to the scene. Stallman says they set up a safe area around the device. “From city hall they put it into their bomb van and we took it out to a range by Little Sioux Park where it was rendered disabled,” according to Stallman.

Federal agents are assisting the sheriff’s department in trying to figure out why the bomb was place at the town’s water tower. “Our detectives will go through to see if there is anything in the area where it happened. They will do intelligence reports — they’ll reach out to law information and ask them to help us determine whether this has happened somewhere else,” Stallman says.

Anthon is a town with a population of around 570 people. Anyone with any information on the bomb is asked to call the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Department.

(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)